CONCLUSION: “ RESEARCH IS A MESSY BUSINESS ” – AN ARCHEOLOGY OF THE CRAFT OF SOCIOLEGAL RESEARCH

1. CONCLUSION: “RESEARCH IS A MESSY BUSINESS”– AN ARCHEOLOGY OF THECRAFT OF SOCIOLEGAL RESEARCH Herbert M. Kritzer 報告人：簡凱倫

2. Introduction • I highlight several themes that I found cutting across the interviews: • problems in figuring out the right question to be asking and how this relates to designing research, • the joys and complexities of original data collection, • the challenge of analyzing data, • and the challenges of working collaboratively.

3. TYPE III ERROR • Type I errorrefers to “rejecting a null hypothesis that is in fact true”. • Type II errorrefers to “failing to reject a null hypothesis that is in fact false.” • Type III error refers to ask the wrong question.

4. TYPE III ERROR • Genn captures this well: -- the difference between doing a quantitative survey and doing qualitative work is that with quantitative work you have to get it right before you start your fieldwork. Once you have got your questionnaire fixed you are stuck with it.

5. TYPE III ERROR • The differences between qualitative and quantitative research: • In quantitative research, particularly survey-based quantitative research, analysis does not start until data collection is completed. • In qualitative research, much or all of the data are usually collected directly by the primary researcher, and the initial analysis of those data starts simultaneously with the data collection.

6. TYPE III ERROR • Sometimes the question changes not because the researcher posed the wrong question but because of changes that occurred during the research or data-collection process. -- ex, author’s student (presidency).

7. TYPE III ERROR • If so, should one engage in the work of preparing a research design? -- McCann says well: “It is important to develop a good formal research design, while at the same time recognizing that, once you go out into the field, you have to be very willing to adjust, reconstruct, adapt, or maybe even throw it out. But you need to come in with an organisational framework of understanding and analysis and expectations.”

8. COLLECTING ORIGINAL DATA • The biggest divide here is between qualitative and quantitative data. -- Sally Merry says: “It seemed clear to me from that study that the best approach was to do an ethnographic observation first so you know what the categories are and you know what people think about. Then you do the survey so that your survey includes their categories; that is, use qualitative work in a kind of exploratory way and then use quantitative data for confirmation or generalization.”

9. COLLECTING ORIGINAL DATA • A separate issue arises in doing qualitative work, and that is the choice between data collected through interviews and data collected through observation. • Feeley: That’s why I liked to hang around the court and to ask people to comment on things they were doing or had just done – explain particular actions. • Stewart: One of the problems of these interviews is that people like to entertain you. So what gets presented as the way things are is really the best story that they’ve got.

10. COLLECTING ORIGINAL DATA • Of course many kinds of situations exist where observation is not possible. • One of the best ways is to focus as much as possible on concrete situations.

11. DATA ANALYSIS • One often hears something akin to, “What do the data say?” or “This is what the data tell me.” These kinds of questions and statements assume that data speak, and the analyst just has to listen to what the data say. • Data do speak, but only when asked.

12. THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE • The problem of “survey fatigue”. • It does suggest that finding ways of motivating participation in surveys will be a key to solving the problem.

13. THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE • The second issue concerns IRBs and the increasing intrusiveness of the process originally intended to protect human subjects from the risk of substantial harm. -- taking time to get approval; -- snowball sample.

14. THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE • The process is built around a model that sees “subjects” as possessing little or no power and researchers as possessing significant power. • However, in a lot of research done by sociolegal scholars, the power relationship is reversed. • The review process needs to consider where the power lies in the researcher–subject relationship.